Chennai, July 10: In a major breakthrough, Indian Coast Guard on Friday confirmed that the debris of its missing Coast Guard Dornier aircraft has been found. The ICG officials also said that the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) also located off Tamil Nadu coastline.

An official communication issued by the ICG spokesperson at 6.10 pm on Friday said that Indian Navy's submarine Sindhudhavaj picked up a barrage of transmissions in a depth of 996 meters on July 6. [Massive search launched for missing Dornier]

"This information was a vital source for deployment of the Reliance vessel, Olympic Canyon to localize the search. Consequently, the unrelenting and uninterrupted search which, included 693 hours of surface effort and 196 hours of air effort finally yielded positive results," the spokesperson said.

The ICG officials said that Multifunctional Support Vessel (MSV) of Reliance India Limited with integrated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was able to locate and recover the FDR and one Line Replacement Unit (LRU). [Submarine Sindhudhvaj joins massive search ops]

"The FDR and LRU have been located at 950 meters and this is the first time ever the salvage has been found at such depths," an official said.